This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I'm an ex-mayor. Los Angeles is a magnet for people from all over the world. Some of them run for public office. Inevitably some of them stray from the golden rule and rule for those that have the gold. That's when I go to work. My name is Yorty. I'm a dead pol.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Sunday Preview: Zev Is Running for Mayor

Mayor Villaraigosa has all but announced his plans to re-up for a second term. He may have an opponent in addition to Walter Moore: County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky (man its hard enough to spell Villaraigosa; how is Red Spot going to handle this one?)

Sunday on the blog I'll tell you why I think Zev is running, how he's already laying the groundwork for a possible campaign and how a Yaroslavsky administration would change LA. Stay tuned.

Zev Yaroslavsky (born December 21, 1948 in Los Angeles, California) is a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, representing the western part of Los Angeles County and a constituency of two million people. He was elected to the board in 1994 and has been re-elected three times, most recently in 2006. He previously served on the Los Angeles City Council (1975-94) to which he was elected and re-elected six times. He earned an M.A. in British Imperial History and a B.A. in Economics and History, both from U.C.L.A. He is a graduate of Fairfax High School in Los Angeles.

As a member of the County Board of Supervisors, Yaroslavsky quickly emerged as a leader on fiscal, health care, transportation, cultural and environmental matters. He authored the 1996 Proposition ‘A’ park bond which resulted in the preservation of rural open space and the development of urban parks throughout the County. He authored the 2002 Proposition ‘B’ trauma tax, approved by over 73% of County voters, a measure which is largely credited with stabilizing the County’s perpetually unpredictable health care finances.

He was the driving force behind the Orange Line bus way across the San Fernando Valley which opened in 2005 to record ridership (22,000 daily boardings). He led the effort to rebuild and modernize the world famous Hollywood Bowl amphitheater which re-opened in 2004, and he was instrumental in the development of Walt Disney Concert Hall, the home of the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra, which opened in 2003. He has also helped fund major investments in the L.A. County Museum of Art and the County’s Museum of Natural History.He is regarded as the County’s fiscal watchdog, insisting that it live within its means.

As a Los Angeles City Councilman, Yaroslavsky honed his fiscal skills as the respected Chair of the Council’s Finance Committee, but he also earned a reputation as a politician who was willing to take on issues that others would not, including the highly controversial excessive use of force and intelligence gathering policies of the Los Angeles Police Department. As Councilman, he also co-authored two landmark initiatives with his colleague, the late Councilman Marvin Braude: Proposition U (1986) which cut by half the commercial development rights adjacent to residential neighborhoods, and Proposition O (1988) which repealed a drilling permit previously issued to the Occidental Petroleum Company.

Since 1991, Yaroslavsky has also been associated with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), a non-governmental organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., that promotes the development of democratic institutions in burgeoning democracies. He has monitored three elections for NDI: Romania (1990), Mexico (2000), and Ukraine (2004). He has conducted seminars on democratic institution-building in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Bosnia/Herzegovina.

Yaroslavsky has taken controversial stances on transportation issues in Los Angeles County. He wrote and sponsored the MTA Reform and Accountability Act of 1998 (Los Angeles County Proposition A), which banned the use of county sales tax revenue for the planning or building of subways, a law which is a significant barrier to the construction of the Metro Purple Line subway extension to the Westside.

However, he has championed bus rapid transit investment in general and the Metro Orange Line busway in the San Fernando Valley in particular.

Yaroslavsky was also an early proponent of easing Westside traffic by converting Pico and Olympic Boulevards into complementary one-way thoroughfares.

What is it with the keyword "CHANGE"? Everybody wants change.It's on banners, headlines. The candidates are chanting it like its an infomercial..

Howzabout "TRANSITION"? It rolls off the tongue and appeals to the intellect of the individual. Or maybe "MORPH"? Can you feature Barack asking the teeming minions, "America, are you ready to MOPH?" Then he could beam at us like he does with his freshness and ever so slightly oversized ears. I like the guy ,really....

I don't know that Zev is actually willing to get into this kind of dogfight. If he does go for it, though, he would make a good mayor. Intelligent, informed, articulate. And not totally smitten with himself....

Like Alan Mittelstaedt said about Zev last week, when Zev was complaining about all the traffic again: He's got some good ideas on mass transit. And on how to solve them and who's responsible. Of course, he's only been in office for 33 years.

Zev seems sincere wanting to help the city and traffic, but like with the Pico-Olympic Plan, he lobbed a major idea like turning the streets into total one-ways, and now left the problem to the Mayor and the Councilman. He's never been good at following through and getting things done to the end.

And he's the one who bowed to this SAME group of NIMBYs who are battling the modified Pico-Olympic plan that HE came up, the Westside NC, Cheviott Hills, the ones who've fought every improvement at Century City.

Because of these people Zev got Waxman to but a ban on fed funds for mass transit, which has killed this city. He now wants to rectify it fast, but his legacy is what he and others have to stumble over.

This same group of NIMBYs forced the Expo line to be built so far south, and end at Robertson instead of going further west -- so it's not even useful for freeing up the traffic on Wilshire, Pico-Olympic, necessitating this plan and the planned Subway to the Sea having to go further north, where it should have all along.

It takes guts to carry through a vision and he's never had one. Does he now? Has he seen the light after 33 years?

Demographically, are there enough white people left to elect him and can he get enough of the Latinos who unite with Mayor V? Will Latinos and blacks vote for a white person? What are his other views?

Zev is making more money now and has job security, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to risk this.

Zev's recent bashing of Gail Goldberg and her planning ideas made most people aware of his intent to run for mayor. What is his involvement in bad planning ideas? Does he have any from when he was on the council before? Or how about county? Has he been a part of any bad planning decisions there?

Hertzberg isn't running for anythnig. He is dead meat. I hope he runs for City Attorney; Jack who was a former AUSA will kick his butt in a debate. And, Antonio will climb aboard the Weiss Express. Both races will be over before they begin.

By way of full disclosure, Higby, aka Mayor Sam, once worked for Hugsberg and has a lifelong crush on him.

Higby claims to be a Republican, but Huggy is far from that.

When he ran for Mayor, Hugsberg used every chit he had and it didn't even get him enough votes to finish ahead of Jimmy Hahn.

Jack Weiss has been running for City Attorney for two years now (unofficially). He has lined up all major endorsements and has commitments from all the players. The "recall" never happened. Why not? ZD and others here backed it big time, but the signatures were never even turned in. Similar to the "recall" of Councilman Villaraigosa, that had the same result; no signatures.

If Huggy wants to run for CA, he starts so far behind it isn't funny.

So, don't believe what you read in these pages, becuase it just ain't so. In July of 2009, we will innaugurate Antonio for his second term, Jack for his first and Wendy for her first.

Huggy, Jimmy Hahn and Rocky will go to the Ted Stein convention.

By the way, the trial of Leland Wong begins in April; stay tuned for lots of revelations as he faces serious time in jail and starts to sing the song.

Sorry, never typed the word, "Hertzberg" before, so interesting that you use that as a reference when complaining about "old news". (Never mentioned Bob in my life.) But that's your example of old ZD news...O.K., you're a strong spinner.

And for the record, although of course I would have liked to have seen Jackass Weiss recalled like anyone who cares about humanity, but I never supported the recall, although I did report about it on the blog. Show me the support posts, beyond reporting please. YOU LOSE AGAIN...you're jealousy is just encompassing your entire emotion bank. Safe to say you have lost your soul in all of this. (Sorry, that was never my intention.)

444 states the Mayor is still loved by the city. That's a laugh. The Mayor has lost his loving feeling and that will reflect in the results of his 2nd term election regardless of who runs against him. It's going to be anyone but....

I don't think I can ever forgive Zev for that ban on county funding of subways.

To punish the MTA for incompetence, he wrote a law that doomed all serious transportation progress for ten years. That was insanely short-sighted. That seems to be the deal with Zev. He gets an idea and he goes really hard after it, then he loses interest and doesn't follow up. There's no sound policy reason to ban all subway funding in the second biggest city in the country.